LITMIR.BIZ

      Staff of the Bontoc Hospital

      This photograph shows the doctors, nurses, and some of the servants. The man in the doorway is Dr. Rembe of the Philippine General Hospital, who accompanied the author on his northern inspection trip in 1912, in order to study eye troubles among the wild men.

      Villa and Leyba had their able imitators, as is shown by the following description of the torturing of Father Ceferino by Major Delfin at Solano, Nueva Vizcaya, on September 27:—

      “They wished to give brave evidence of their hate for the friar before Leyba left, and show him that they were as brave as he when it came to oppressing and torturing the friar. This tragedy began by Jimenez again asking Father Ceferino for the money. The priest answered as he had done before. Then Jimenez started to talk in Tagalog to the commanding officer and surely it was nothing good that he told him, for suddenly Delfin left the bench and darting fire from his eyes, fell in blind fury upon the defenceless priest; what harsh words he uttered in Tagalog while he vented his fury on his victim, striking him with his clenched fist, slapping him and kicking him, I do not know, but the religious man fell at the feet of his furious executioner who, being now the prey of the most stupendous rage, could scarcely get his tongue to stutter and continued to kick the priest, without seeing where he kicked him. Getting deeper and deeper in the abyss and perhaps not knowing what he was about, this petty chief made straight for a sabre lying on a table to continue his bloody work. In the meantime the priest had risen to his feet and awaited with resignation new torments which certainly were even worse than the first, for he gave him so many and such hard blows with the sabre that the blade was broken close to the hilt. This accident so infuriated Delfin that he again threw himself upon the priest, kicking him furiously and striking him repeatedly until he again threw him to the ground, and not yet satisfied, his vengefulness led him to throw himself upon his victim with the fury of a tiger after his prey, beating him on the head with the hilt of the saber until the blood ran in streams and formed pools upon the pavement. The priest, more dead than alive, shuddered from head to foot, and appeared to be struggling in a tremendous fight between life and death; he had hardly enough strength to get his tongue to ask for God’s mercy. At this most critical juncture, and when it seemed as if death were inevitable, the martyr received absolution from Father Diez, who witnessed the blood-curdling picture with his heart pierced with grief at the sight of the sufferings of his innocent brother, feeling as must the condemned man preparing for death who sees the hours fly by with vertiginous rapidity. The blood flowing from the wounds on the priest’s head appeared to infuriate and blind the heart of Delfin who, rising from his victim’s body, sped away to the armory in the court house, seized a rifle, and came back furious to brain him with the butt and finish killing the priest; but God willed to free his servant from death at the hands of those cannibals, so that generous Lieutenant Navarro interfered, took the rifle away from him and caught Delfin by the arm, threatening him with some words spoken in Tagalog. Then Navarro, to appease Delfin’s anger, turned the priest over with his face to the ground and gave him a few strokes with the bamboo, and feigning anger and indignation, ordered him away.

      “Those who witnessed the horrible tragedy, the brutality of the tyrant and the prostration of the friar were persuaded that the latter would never survive his martyrdom. The religious man himself holds it as a veritable portent that he outlived such a terrible trial; but even this did not satisfy them as subsequently the Secretary again called Father Ceferino to subject him to a further scrutiny, as ridiculous as it was malicious, though it did not go beyond words or insults.”

      Señor Perez, the governor of Isabela, and Father Diez were compelled to go to Ilagan. After they had arrived there on October 2d, Villa proceeded to torture them. At the outset ten soldiers, undoubtedly instructed beforehand, beat the governor down to the earth, with the butts of their guns. Villa himself struck him three times in the chest with the butt of a gun and Father Diez gave him absolution, thinking he was dying. Father Diez was then knocked down repeatedly with the butts of guns, being made to stand up promptly each time in order that he might be knocked down again. Not satisfied with this, Villa compelled the suffering priest to kneel before him and kicked him in the nose, repeating the operation until he left him stretched on the floor half-senseless with his nose broken. He next had both victims put in stocks with their weight supported by their feet alone. While in this position soldiers beat them and jumped onto them and one set the governor’s beard on fire with matches. Father Diez was kept in the stocks four days. He was then sent to Tuguegarao in order that personal enemies there might take vengeance on him, Villa bidding him good-by with the following words: “Go now to Tuguegarao and see if they will finish killing you there.” Señor Perez was kept in the stocks eight days and it is a wonder that he did not die.

      Upon the 25th of September Villa went to the convento in Ilagan prepared to torture the priests, but he succeeded in compelling a number of them to sign indorsements in his favour on various letters of credit payable by the Tabacalera Company and departed again in fairly good humour, having done nothing worse than strike one of them.

      Later, however, on the pretext that Fathers Aguado and Labanda had money hidden away, he determined to torture them with water. The first to be tortured was Father Labanda. Villa had him taken to the prison where the priest found his two faithful Filipino servants who had been beaten cruelly and were then hanging from a beam, this having been done in order to make them tell where his money was.

      He was tied after the usual fashion and water poured down his nose and throat. During the brief respites necessary in order to prevent his dying outright he was cruelly beaten. They finally dragged him out of the prison by the feet, his head leaving a bloody trail on the stones. After he had been taken back to his companions, one of the men who had tortured him came to beg his pardon, saying that he had been compelled to do it by Villa.

      Father Aguado was next tortured in one of the rooms of the convento. Villa finished the day’s work by announcing to the band of priests that he would have them all shot the next day on the plaza, and ordering them to get ready.

      On the 29th the barbarities practised by this inhuman fiend reached their climax in the torturing to death of Lieutenant Piera. The following description gives some faint idea of one of the most diabolical crimes ever committed in the Philippines:—

      “Villa’s cruelty and sanguinary jeering grew without let or hindrance from day to day; it seemed that this hyena continually cudgelled his brains to invent new kinds of torture and to jeer at the friars. On the night of the 29th of September the diabolical idea occurred to him of giving the coup de grace to the prestige of the friars by making them pass through the streets of Ilagan conducting and playing a band of music. He carried out his nonsensical purpose by calling upon Father Diogracias to play the big drum, and when this priest had started playing Villa learned that Father Primo was a musician and could therefore play the drum and lead the band with all skill, so he called upon Father Primo to come forward, and with one thing and another this ridiculous function was carried on until the late hours of the night.

      “While these two priests were serenading Villa and his gang, the most dreadful shrieks were heard from the jail, accompanied by pitiful cries that would melt the coldest heart. The priests hearing these echoes of sorrow and pain, and who did not know for what purpose Fathers Deogracias and Primo had been separated from them, seemed to recognize the voices of these two priests among the groans, believing them to be cruelly tortured; for this reason they began to say the rosary in order that the Most Holy Virgin might imbue them with patience and fortitude in their martyrdom. Great was their surprise when these priests returned saying that they had contented themselves with merely making fun of them by obliging them to play the big drum and lead the band.

“Although this somewhat tempered their sorrow, a thorn remained in their hearts, fearing that the moving lamentations and the mortal groans came from the lips of some

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